The Punishment of the Stingy, and Other Indian Stories, The Beaver Stick, sentence 69

He took a large buffalo chip and placed it in the dish, and began to break it up into fine pieces, singing, as he did so, a strange song.

Who acts: chief · What happens: take, place, begin, break up, sing, do · To what, where: large buffalo chip, chip, dish, strange song, fine pieces

This is a sentence of «The Punishment of the Stingy, and Other Indian Stories» by George Bird Grinnell, The Beaver Stick. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (chief), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree.

Mova's own parse. This tree may be wrong.

The tree

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	He	he	PRON	Case=Nom Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	2 took	nsubj
2	took	take	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	root	root
3	a	a	DET	Definite=Ind PronType=Art	6 chip	det
4	large	large	ADJ	Degree=Pos	6 chip	amod
5	buffalo	buffalo	NOUN	Number=Sing	6 chip	compound
6	chip	chip	NOUN	Number=Sing	2 took	obj
7	and	and	CCONJ	_	8 placed	cc
8	placed	place	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	2 took	conj
9	it	it	PRON	Case=Acc Gender=Neut Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	8 placed	obj
10	in	in	ADP	_	12 dish	case
11	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	12 dish	det
12	dish	dish	NOUN	Number=Sing	8 placed	obl
13	,	,	PUNCT	_	15 began	punct
14	and	and	CCONJ	_	15 began	cc
15	began	begin	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	2 took	conj
16	to	to	PART	_	17 break	mark
17	break	break	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	15 began	xcomp
18	it	it	PRON	Case=Acc Gender=Neut Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	17 break	obj
19	up	up	ADP	_	17 break	compound:prt
20	into	into	ADP	_	22 pieces	case
21	fine	fine	ADJ	Degree=Pos	22 pieces	amod
22	pieces	piece	NOUN	Number=Plur	17 break	obl
23	,	,	PUNCT	_	24 singing	punct
24	singing	sing	VERB	Tense=Pres VerbForm=Part	17 break	advcl
25	,	,	PUNCT	_	28 did	punct
26	as	as	SCONJ	_	28 did	mark
27	he	he	PRON	Case=Nom Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	28 did	nsubj
28	did	do	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	15 began	conj
29	so	so	ADV	_	28 did	advmod
30	,	,	PUNCT	_	33 song	punct
31	a	a	DET	Definite=Ind PronType=Art	33 song	det
32	strange	strange	ADJ	Degree=Pos	33 song	amod
33	song	song	NOUN	Number=Sing	15 began	obl
34	.	.	PUNCT	_	2 took	punct

Pragmatics

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	where	other	roles by
1	take	past	chief	a large buffalo chip			vn bring-11.3 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent chip=Theme
2	place	past	chief not said here	chip	the dish		vn put-9.1-2 «NP V NP PP.destination»: agent=Agent it=Theme in dish=Destination
3	begin	past	chief not said here	a strange song			vn begin-55.1-1-1 «NP V S_INF»: agent=Agent clause=Eventuality
4	break up	to-infinitive	chief not said here	chip		into fine pieces result	vn break-45.1 «NP V NP PP.result»: agent=Agent it=Patient into piece=Result
5	sing speech: express	gerund	chief not said here				vn sound_emission-43.2 «NP V»: agent=Theme
6	do	past	chief				vn act-114-1 «NP V»: agent=Agent

One row per clause the reader finds. «not said here»: a role filled from the clause above. «roles by»: a VerbNet class and frame when one fits the verb, else the reader's rules on the tree.

Text: «The Punishment of the Stingy, and Other Indian Stories» by George Bird Grinnell, Project Gutenberg book 66596 (public domain in the USA). Tree: Mova's own parse, Elamur Cosmic License. Frames: Mova's frames reader (prag), the chapter read in order.

This page in Markdown → https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg66596/17/69/

🌲 The Punishment of the Stingy, and Other Indian Stories, The Beaver Stick, sentence 69

The tree

Pragmatics

The Punishment of the Stingy, and Other Indian Stories, The Beaver Stick, sentence 69